Abstract
The purpose of this instrumental research was to expand the Internalized Homonegativity Scale to assess a new factor, the fear of being identified as a non-heterosexual person, and to validate the new instrument. A questionnaire was applied to an incidental sample of 200 medical students from a private university in Monterrey, Mexico. This questionnaire was composed of four items about socio-demographic information, one is about self-defined sexual orientation, 16-item Internalized Homonegativity Scale (plus five items to assess the new factor), Attitude Towards Lesbians and Gay Men Scale, and Kinsey’s Sexual Orientation Scale. The overall internal consistency was excellent. Upon removing two items, a four-factor model was reproduced through exploratory factor analysis; the goodness of fit was good. The four factors showed evidence of internal consistency and discriminant validity. The IHN-21 total score followed a normal distribution and its mean was higher among men than among women. IHN-21 had negative correlation with age and sexual orientation, and positive correlation with attitude of rejection towards gay men and lesbians. It is concluded that the scale shows internal consistency and reliability and construct validity. Key words: Homonegativity, attitude, sexual orientation, factor analysis, psychometrics.
Highlights
This study proposes as research question: is the fear of being identified as a non-heterosexual person a relevant dimension to evaluate internalized homonegativity from its broader concept? There is a scale to assess this broader concept developed in the population of medical students
Upon creating the items to assess the fear of being identified as a non-heterosexual person, new questions arise: (i) Do these items show internal consistency reliability and convergent validity within a factor that could be named „fear of being identified as a non-heterosexual person‟? (ii) Do these items have discriminant validity within the factor structure of the scale? (iii) Does the model with the new factor have structural validity?
The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an expanded version of IHN-16 scale by adding five new items intended to more fully assess the broadened construct of internalized homonegativity, including the dimension related to fear of being identified as a non-heterosexual person (FIN)
Summary
This study proposes as research question: is the fear of being identified as a non-heterosexual person a relevant dimension to evaluate internalized homonegativity from its broader concept? There is a scale to assess this broader concept developed in the population of medical students. The term „internalized homonegativity‟, on the other hand, was used to describe negative attitudes towards oneself when one recognizes one‟s homoerotic attraction, feelings, and/or desires These negative judgments and feelings towards oneself arise when a heterosexist ideology prevails in the society in which one lives and this ideology is internalized (Berg et al, 2017). In this way, the theorists clarified that the concept of „internalized homonegativity‟ applies to a minority of people, to the “others”, and those “others”, in their fullest expression, are the exclusively homosexual persons. Any hint of homoerotic desires, fantasies, and/or behaviours as well as any clue of ambiguity have been deemed deviant or pathological by many people (Anderson and Holland, 2015; Cheng, 2018)
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